Update On SPAM

As I reported in an earlier issue, some of your subscriptions were blocked by your ISP because they had implemented a new anti-SPAM program and they were using a combination of algorithms and web-based blacklist information that caught us in their web.

We were, properly I think, outraged.  After all, we’re not SPAMMERS (you can’t get this newsletter except by opt-in subscription – we don’t buy lists to promote it to at all) and we had carefully selected a list management company with a good reputation (we had even checked references) and a strong anti-SPAM policy.

Apparently, none of that counted.  What counted was that our list manager’s server had been listed as a SPAM source because, it turns out, one of his lists (a state legislation) had been spoofed as an election-time dirty trick, causing SPAM reports to be generated.  That’s been sorted out.

More important, the ISP in question, Interland, has changed its anti-SPAM methodology, temporarily turning some of the filters off until they could be suitably modified.  They agreed that in their desire to block SPAM they were blocking too much legitimate email.  (Apparently, we weren’t the only ones complaining.)  They will use some combination of letting users identify SPAM and ask that it be filtered and opting to have specific items delivered; this will, they say, take a few weeks.

Interland brought up, several times, an important point, which is worth considering.  The SPAMMERS are costing all of us – ISPs and users – a considerable amount of money.  The ISPs are spending millions of dollars of bandwidth to deliver mail no one wants.  We, the users, are spending millions of dollars of time dealing with this unwanted junk.

The problem is it’s not trivial to identify SPAM and automatically avoid it.  I found an excellent article on the problem by Paul Soltoff at http://www.clickz.com/em_mkt/em_mkt/article.php/1492521, pointing out how hard it is to define SPAM.

I also was the beneficiary of dozens of emails from those wiser and more technically minded than I, pointing out details I didn’t understand or overlooked, and offering to help.  For that, many thanks.  For the few of you who thought that I got what I deserved by using a SPAMMER, and used the opportunity to tell me that obviously I was a SPAMMER myself, I’m sorry that you missed the point. 

SPAM is a plague on the Internet.  I doubt that we’ll ever entirely eliminate it, but I suspect we’ll figure out how to make it too expensive to continue at the level it exists today.  I’m in favor of laws, big fines, and a change in the rules about how we generate permission to send mail to people we don’t have relationships with.  Maybe micro payments for attention (something Esther Dyson suggested long ago) are the answer or a scheme which requires that all mail sent to someone with whom there is no existing relationship; carry an appropriate identifier in the subject line like “ADV” for advertisement or “OFR” for offer.  Then I can easily set my filter to eliminate such email – or choose to send it to a “browse when bored” folder.  

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